A right to health care: Sanley Jean

Posted on June 07, 2010

On January 12, 2010, 19-year-old Sanley Jean, home after spending a day at school, found herself suddenly trapped when the walls of her Port-au-Prince house collapsed on her during the massive earthquake. The rubble crushed her leg, breaking and exposing the bone. Such open fractures require immediate medical attention and often complex orthopedic surgery. But the devastating earthquake had left Port-au-Prince’s hospitals in ruins.

Sanley Jean with her mother, Anette.

Jean’s mother, Anette, survived with scrapes and sprains, and knew that getting treatment for her daughter would be difficult. The capital’s only public hospital was able to provide only limited services in tents set up on the hospital ground. The facility was overrun by thousands of patients. Many of the Port-au-Prince’s residents were forced to seek medical attention outside of the city.

So Anette took her daughter to the Dominican Republic, a multiple-hour journey from their devastated home. Her hope was that once there, Jean would have a better chance of seeing a doctor.

Seeking medical attention

Meanwhile, Dr. Ralph Ternier of Zanmi Lasante, PIH’s partner organization in Haiti, was in the Dominican Republic assisting patients who had fled to a hospital in San Juan. It was there that Ternier, who heads ZL’s hospital in the bordertown of Belladerre, Haiti, found the Jean women. He quickly realized Jean’s open fracture required surgical care not available in his facility, and arranged to have her transferred to PIH’s hospital in Cange, Haiti.

Once in Cange, Dr. Chris Sampson met and started treating Jean. He believed that there was a slim chance that her leg could be saved—but only by transferring her to a better-equipped hospital. So PIH’s Right to Health Care (RTHC) team stepped in.

PIH's Right to Health Care steps in

In a truly collaborative effort, many people came together to help Jean get to the US. The first step was to locate a hospital willing and able to take on her case. With support from Dr. Sampson, the Boston-based Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) quickly stepped up to the plate.

PIH and Zanmi Lasante staff then began the task of coordinating Jean’s paperwork, maneuvering through both the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Haiti’s overburdened government offices. With so many moving parts to the equation, some of the staff began to worry that they wouldn’t be able to get her to the U.S. for treatment in time. It came down to the wire with mother, daughter and ZL staff waiting in an ambulance in the airport parking lot for the paperwork to be delivered. Her papers arrived 30 minutes before takeoff. The Jean women took their seats on the first commercial flight out of Haiti after the earthquake.

Recovery in Boston

After landing in Boston, Jean was taken directly from the airport to BWH. There, she was greeted by doctors and nurses, many of whom are from Haiti or have close ties to the Haitian community. PIH and BWH staff brought the family Haitian food, flowers, balloons, and spent hours talking with the women — making sure their transition from Haiti to Boston was a comfortable one. Neither woman had ever seen snow or experienced sub-freezing temperatures. BWH staff bought the women warmer clothes.

Although loved and well-cared for at BWH, it soon became clear that Jean’s leg could not be saved after all. The situation was not easy, but Jean eventually came to grips with this fact as BWH and PIH staff carefully explained the consequences of keeping her leg. In the end, she made the decision to have her leg amputated to save her life.

After the operation, Jean says her body hurt for three or four days. She was in rehab less than two weeks later—slowly learning how to live with an altered body. In early March, as her leg began to heal, Jean and her mom started venturing outside of the hospital, often with the use of a walker.

Jean was fitted for a permanent prosthetic leg in late March and is currently undergoing physical therapy so that she can learn how to use it. She is one step closer to reaching a new normal and returning home.